Platinum Trophies often represent a player achieving mastery of a particular game and platinum hunting is something of a hobby among more dedicated players. The PS3 really brought trophy hunting to the mainstream and introduced a bunch of wonderful games with reasonable trophies to strive for.
Unfortunately it also contained a number of games with some of the most difficult platinum trophies to obtain that only a handful of players would ever earn. Whether it was tremendous grinding in multiplayer, tough challenges, or a perma death system here are some of the most difficult.
10 Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2
Ninja Gaiden games are known for being tough and Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 was no exception. Even on normal difficulties players were expected to have a decent grasp of the game and it’s mechanics before it could be beaten.
To acquire the platinum trophy you not only had to complete every chapter in the game on Master Ninja difficulty, but you also had to get the Master Ninja rank on each one as well. Beating it on the highest difficulty would have been platinum worthy considering the challenge, but the added requirement of perfection was a bit much for many players.
9 Raiden IV
Raiden IV is a vertical scrolling shooter that put players in the cockpit of a technologically advanced fighter to take down enemies and save the day. It was a fun game on regular difficulties, but to get the platinum trophy you needed to toss fun out the window.
You had to play the game on Ultimate difficulty and you couldn’t ever use a continue. This meant if your craft was ever shot down you’d need to restart the entire game to qualify for the trophy.
8 Battlefield: Bad Company
Battlefield: Bad Company was a decent military shooter that was fun on multiplayer when it was released. For many players though it wasn’t nearly fun enough to justify the intense grind needed for the platinum trophy.
To get the final award you needed to obtain 10,002 kills in multiplayer. This could easily take hundreds of hours and required you to endlessly join matches and take down other real-life opponents. This was at best a monotonous grind if you were a good player or a frustrating grind of lucky kills if you were bad at multiplayer.
7 Wipeout HD
Racing games are often notorious for rough platinum challenges and Wipeout HD definitely embraced this notoriety. You needed to complete every single racing challenge in the game under extremely tight time requirements.
This required very precise play and led to players committing many hours of grinding the same laps over and over again to shave off enough milliseconds to get under the time limit. It makes you wonder if the time challenges were based on the performance of a highly talented beta tester or just arbitrarily chosen by the developers.
6 Far Cry 2
Far Cry 2 was a great game that players happily sank many hours into, but very few were willing to sink in the hours needed to achieve the platinum trophy. The most troublesome trophies were Warlord and Soldier of Misfortune.
Warlord demanded players reach level 30 in multiplayer, players did the math and that meant getting 1.5 million experience points with each knockdown and followup giving you 15 points. While you were getting those 100 thousand kills the Soldier Of Misfortune trophy wanted you to get a variety of kills using different weapons and often on different servers.
5 Mirror’s Edge
For some players Mirror’s Edge was a soothing game of parkour and free running that had some of the smoothest gameplay and controls ever seen on the PS3. For those who wanted to maintain that fluid tranquility of running through the cityscape it was in their best interest not to tackle the trophies.
Some were relatively easy, but many of the gold required insane precision and speed that only speedrunners are know for. In all likelihood the only people with the Mirror’s Edge platinum trophy are the Mirror’s Edge speedrunners.
4 Lost Planet 2
Lost Planet 2 was a great game that you could easily go through a handful of times without getting bored. That moment you finally grew bored of Lost Planet 2 was likely nowhere near the number of playthroughs it took to get the final trophy.
For starters you need to beat the game on the highest difficulty which required a minimum of four playthroughs to unlock. If you managed that you then needed to tackle the challenge that required you to play the chapters 300 times which meant a few dozen playthroughs on the hardest difficulty.
3 Titan Souls
Titan Souls is often compared to the Dark Souls series given their similar names, similar game mechanics, and that the series was an inspiration for the game. Knowing how difficult the Dark Souls series was should tell you what tackling platinum on Titan Souls is like.
The Iron Titan trophy required you to beat the game on Iron Mode on Hard difficulty. Iron Mode is a perma death system meaning if you died you needed to start the game over from the beginning. As if that wasn’t bad enough the trophy Aerodynamic forced you to beat the entire game in under 20 minutes.
2 Gran Turismo 5
Gran Turismo 5 is easily the king of the hardest platinum trophy to obtain in a racing game. To unlock this shiny trophy you needed to beat every racing event in the game, from the tournaments to the License Tests, and achieve gold on each of them.
At first the trophy might seem manageable, but in later races trying to meet those time requirements with squirrely speed demons was an effort in madness.
1 Mortal Kombat 9
Of all the platinum trophies for the PS3 many players consider the one in Mortal Kombat 9 to be the most challenging. The infamous My Kung Fu Is Stronger trophy demanded 100 wins, executing 100 -alities, 150 X-Ray attacks, spilling 10 thousand pints of blood, and playing 24 hours with each of the 28 fighters.
Assuming you were efficient and skilled enough to meet all of the insane challenges within the 24 hour requirement for each fighter you were still looking at 672 hours minimum to achieve this platinum trophy.